Beautiful Idiots
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: Time Ladies don't get nightmares, even when they do. The metacrisis fem!Doctor seeks solace from Rose in the middle of the night. (Teen for language and suggestive themes; read the Adult/uncensored version on Tumblr, AO3, or Teaspoon.)


It doesn't matter how they start—they all end the same way.

(She stubbornly refuses to call them _nightmares,_ even in her own head, because she's stubborn, clinging to that last piece of Gallifreyan pride, and _Time Ladies don't get nightmares,_ even when they do.)

Sometimes they have a row. Or at least the Doctor thinks they must have; she can't recall the words exactly, only the emotion behind them. It never occurs to her to worry about this, that she can't remember the fight. But then, that's dream logic for you. Dread weighs heavy in the pit of her stomach as she watches Rose turn and leave. The Doctor calls her name, follows after her, but no matter how loudly she shouts, how quickly she runs, she can't catch up to Rose, can't stop her. The more she reaches, the further away Rose is.

Occasionally things take on a nonsensical tone. They're in the middle of saving some planet or other, outrunning a giant sentient inflatable tyrannosaurus rex or negotiating on the planet of the hats. Everything seems good and well until all of a sudden it isn't; the Doctor says something, or does something, she wouldn't have done before. (She doesn't think of it as _Before_ when she's awake, because she was herself then and she's still herself now, and as far as she's concerned, there's little differentiating between the two.) But Rose's lips still and her face falls. Her hand flies to her chest, and the Doctor realizes that she's wearing her TARDIS key (still, or maybe again), and the Doctor knows what Rose will say next, knows what she will do.

Other times, the Doctor comes home—only it isn't home, not exactly, not at all, it doesn't look anything like home but it feels like home in her ribs in just the way things do in dreams—and Rose is gone.

If these were waking hours, the Doctor's mind would calculate in a matter of milliseconds every likely scenario: Rose is answering an emergency call from Torchwood, she's with her mum and Pete, she's picking Tony up from school, she's out at the shops with Annie from the office, she's in the garden playing with the stray cat who is far too friendly and frequent to really be considered "stray" anymore. But the Doctor's sleeping mind is treacherous, full of thorns and crumbling ground, and the moment her foot crosses the dream-threshold, she realizes that Rose is properly gone. Feels it in the same way she can't ignore her singular heartbeat; knows it the same way she knows this strange murky shadow-place is home.

And sometimes, if she's very, very unlucky, she dreams about Rose, and a white room, and a pair of levers, all at the top of a tall tower. It isn't the Dimension Cannon—she knows it isn't—but since she's never seen it, her brain helpfully supplies the next best (worst) thing.

(In her dreams, Rose never says anything. She doesn't have to.)

Rose pulls the lever and a blinding white light floods the room, winds whipping through with a howl. The Doctor tells her (begs her) to stop, but it doesn't come out right. It's all just meaningless gibberish that even the TARDIS wouldn't translate. Words empty of purpose. Dream-language. And she just stands there, mute and unmoving while her solitary heart pounds and her skull aches. While Rose steps back into the other universe.

(There are other dreams, of course, other things that haunt the Doctor in the night. Inhuman memories are poorly handled by a human body armed only with human defenses. But images of Davros and Rassilon and Arcadia and the Valeyard and even a traitorous love whose face changes along with hers are all things she can handle. There's a certain morbid safety to them in this new universe, in knowing that here, none of those things exist. Here, none of those things are real. Moreover, they've haunted her for so long now, even since _Before_ , that they are almost comfortable fears, a familiar guilt living in her skin. She knows how to deal with those things.

She doesn't know how to deal with this.)

Of course, Rose has a solution—it's waiting (just _waiting_ ) on the tip of her tongue every time the Doctor wakes her with her twitches and trashes and short, sharp breaths that puncture holes in the quiet night air. But Rose won't say anything. Instead she chooses to feign ignorance, for the Doctor's sake more than hers, she thinks. Rose lies in silence rather than risk hurting her pride. In so many ways, she continues to follow the map they both drew _Before_.

(Besides, Rose doesn't know what the Doctor dreams about, only that she dreams.)

The solution goes unsaid but Rose's little black book of contacts is left conspicuously out in the open, its contents splayed for all to see. It's always the same page winking back up at the Doctor, its paper gone crinkly from moisture, its corner stained with something that's hopefully coffee. A name and a number are written in blue, in Rose's loopy scrawl. The name and number of a doctor.

( _No, a physician_ , the Doctor tells herself every time she sees it, and she refuses to think about why.)

It's an invitation. A gentle nudge. But the Doctor doesn't know how to explain that that feels like cheating somehow. Like the use of human conventions would be a betrayal to her own kind, when she should be better than this on her own, without help. She shouldn't need assurance or counsel, shouldn't allow herself the temptation of pharmaceuticals or quietly wish for the comfort of Rose's touch when she wakes up shouting in the night. _She should just be better_.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the firing of her synapses, that message appears to be lost to her subconscious. Because tonight, deep in a labyrinthine sleep, she stands on that godsforsaken beach again. They're all inside the TARDIS, all of them, everyone except Rose. And _her_.

Tonight, she has a nightmare.

"I'm sorry," Rose says, and because she's Rose, the Doctor knows she means it, even if happiness glitters in the corners of her eyes and pulls at her lips. "It's just…"

She glances back at the other Doctor with a shy grin, and the Doctor's insides burn with jealousy.

"What will you do now?" Rose asks, turning back to her.

"Same old life," says her mouth, giving shape to her words. Lying on her behalf.

Rose's smile never falters. "It's not your fault, you know." She laughs, the sound a full-bodied and melodious thing. "You couldn't help it. None of us asked to be made."

Something fiery burns in the Doctor's veins, scalds the backs of her eyelids and boils in her lungs. "I love you," she blurts out, and she doesn't even bother to hide the desperation in her voice, the ragged plea.

Laughing again, Rose shakes her head. "You're so funny," she says between giggles. Slow steps backward bring her closer to the other Doctor (the proper one), until she reaches back for the Doctor's hand and twines her fingers around hers. "How come I never knew how funny you are?"

The Doctor's throat seizes up, trapping words like _Stop_ and _Rose_ and _Please_ inside.

The next thing she knows, Rose is gone, her other self is nowhere to be seen, and a series of telltale grinding sounds let her know that the TARDIS is preparing for dematerialization.

( _She won't change_ , the Doctor wants to shout. _She can't._ But it wouldn't matter even if the words had managed to escape. The TARDIS is gone.

She is alone.)

The Doctor startles awake, wrenched out of sleep by the sound of someone shouting. (It's her.)

"Wha'?" a voice slurs from somewhere on her right, so quiet that the sound barely makes it over the Doctor's pulse hammering in her ears. "Wha's happen?"

Too busy forcing air in and out of her lungs, the Doctor can't reply yet. She just clutches her chest and waits for the choking gasps to subside, or at the very least for her heart to stop pounding. She's trembling, doused in an icy sweat.

A hand lights on her shoulder. "Are you all right?" the voice asks, louder and more lucid this time. The Doctor turns to see Rose staring at her; even in the dark, her face only half-lit by watery moonlight, it's obvious that she's concerned. The sight of her, worried but safe and here and in bed—in _their_ bed, the one they share, together—floods the Doctor with relief and embarrassment in equal measure.

"Doctor?" Rose tries again. "What's—"

Her question is cut short by the Doctor's arms looping around her, drawing her near. The Doctor buries her face in Rose's neck and wills her not to speak.

If Rose picks up on the silent cue, she ignores it. "Doctor…"

"Please," she says, her voice muffled against Rose's throat. "Just…"

Rose waits patiently for her to finish, but in truthfulness, even the Doctor doesn't know what was going to follow. So she tightens her arms around Rose instead, eliminates even the thought of distance between them.

"God, you're really shaking," Rose whispers. Her fingers fist in the back of the Doctor's nightshirt. "What's wrong?"

She doesn't have a reply—at least, not one that doesn't sound unbearably pitiful, pathetic even—so she loosens her hold on Rose just enough that she can kiss her instead. Rose does not open her mouth at first, like she's being stubborn, like she knows exactly what the Doctor is doing (and she does; she knows that granting the Doctor access means relinquishing control). But after a moment her lips part, allowing the Doctor just the smallest sliver of a window. Fingers wrapped around Rose's chin, the Doctor kisses her greedily.

Rose tries to lean back. "Don't you think we should talk?"

"No."

The Doctor chases after her, pressing her lips to Rose's, eyes closed so that she doesn't have to see the worry on Rose's face anymore. Rose tastes like sleep and spearmint and tea and _her_ and it's exactly what the Doctor needs right now. But she wants more.

But Rose still has that _look_ on her face, the stupid horrible worried one.

"Doctor…"

"I don't want to hear it," the Doctor breathes. "Not unless you're screaming it."

Before Rose has a chance to reply, the Doctor kisses her again.

* * *

"I'm yours," the Doctor murmurs, blissfully adrift in the warmth of the afterglow. She breaks away, kissing Rose's cheek, her jaw, her throat. "I'm yours, my life is yours, I belong to you—"

"I know," Rose laughs, and her smile is just like it was in the nightmare, the laugh a carbon copy, and the Doctor's anxiety must be showing on her face, because suddenly Rose isn't smiling anymore.

The Doctor bends down, hiding her face under the pretense of kissing Rose's throat again, but Rose shakes her off. "What's this all about?" she asks.

"Nothing," the Doctor lies. "Just don't leave me," she adds quietly.

Rose's eyes widen. "What?"

The Doctor hesitates. Did she really just say that out loud?

"I need air," Rose demands, chest heaving. " _Now_."

The Doctor goes cold, like someone dumped a sack of ice down the back of her shirt. Nervous, the Doctor opens her mouth to ask if she went too far—surely Rose would have let her know?—but the second she moves back, Rose grabs her hand.

"Had just about enough of this," Rose growls, her fingers tightening around the Doctor's. "You're clever, and you're beautiful and I love you, but you're— _fuck_ —you're an idiot."

She plants a fierce kiss on the Doctor's knuckles. "I don't know how many ways I have to say it. I'm not gonna leave. Do you understand? I'm yours, too. _I'm never going to leave you_."

Some strange cocktail of emotion wells up in the Doctor at those words. Her cheeks go warm as pressure builds up behind her eyes. She blinks the stinging sensation away.

After a moment of glaring (and the Doctor is absolutely _not_ thinking about how much she looks like her mother when she does that, because the last thing she wants to think about post-coitus is Jackie bloody Tyler), Rose throws herself back on the bed with a _hmph_ , snuggling back closer to the Doctor. The Doctor's arm loops around her out of reflex. The two of them just breathe for a moment, until the sounds of the Doctor's racing heartbeat give way to a quiet ringing in her ears.

"Thank you," the Doctor manages to say between breaths.

Rose looks up at her. "For what?"

The Doctor considers being cheeky (or worse, honest), but she doesn't have the energy for either. So instead she leans down for a kiss, and if something about it is hungrier than usual, more urgent, neither of them say anything.

* * *

Approximately twenty-three minutes pass before either of them is willing to admit, in any sense of the word, that their physical arrangement is officially uncomfortable. Limbs disentangle and bodies roll over so that their respective owners can shuffle off to the loo in turns.

When the Doctor returns to bed, cleaned-up and sporting a clean pair of pants—anything else is too much effort—she can't help but note with a pang that Rose already looks to be fast asleep again.

She chides herself. Rose has already offered her more than enough reassurance tonight. She can't reasonably ask for anything else. Surely she's not _that_ pathetic.

Leaning against the doorjamb, the Doctor watches Rose for a moment while she sleeps. Her face is utterly free of expression, like a figure in a Renaissance portrait, relaxed and unguarded and impossibly young. There's a tiny smudge of mascara just beneath her right eye; she must have missed it while washing up for the night. Her cheeks are still flushed, her lips a kiss-swollen red, her hair a royal golden mess of a nest.

The Doctor smiles. She refuses to think anything along the lines of how Rose is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. The notion is impossibly cheesy, hopelessly human, ridiculously sentimental. Still, something swells in the Doctor's chest nonetheless.

Doing her best not to disrupt Rose, she lifts the covers and slides in, facing away before she settles. She jumps at the feeling of Rose's hand on her shoulder not half a second later.

"Listen," Rose says sleepily, her voice issuing from somewhere close to the Doctor's ear. "You're going to the doctor's tomorrow."

The Doctor stiffens at that.

"I know you don't want to, but you won't talk to me about whatever's going on," Rose continues, punctuating her sentence with a lazy yawn, "so don't talk to me. Talk to my counselor."

The Doctor does not reply. She chooses to fidget instead, twisting the bedsheet in her hands.

"I mean, I enjoy a good midnight shag as much as the next girl, but I'm always unbearably knackered in the morning," Rose teases, and the Doctor grins a little despite herself. "So even if you won't get help for yourself…would you do it for me?"

Damn. Rose's words are darts and her mouth has perfect aim. The Doctor rather resents her for it, sometimes. She bites her tongue to keep from snapping back.

Rose sighs behind her. Certain she's about to roll back over to her side of the bed, the Doctor braces herself. It's funny, isn't it, how she manages to bung things up even without uttering a single word? But instead, Rose slips her hand between the Doctor's arm and her stomach, drawing herself close, until her curves mold comfortably to the Doctor's back. The sensation of Rose pressed up against her, her chest rising and falling in a gentle metric, her breath warm on the Doctor's neck, loosens up something deep in the Doctor's throat.

She places her hand over Rose's, twining their fingers together and pulling so that Rose is completely cushioned against her.

"I'll do it for you," says the Doctor.


End file.
